The Virgin Suicide - a book and film review

The Virgin Suicide

Hello to everyone and anyone that is currently reading! I have to be honest, I had withheld watching the film and avoided spoilers as best as I could because I wanted to read the book and when I saw it sitting on the shelf all alone in my local bookstore, I knew I should grab it. And that I did! There will be spoilers in both the book and film, if you don’t want to get spoiled, please, click off! If not, scroll on! 

Book review

I went into The Virgin Suicides completely blind. I read the synopsis, hadn’t seen the movie, and thought I was diving into a typical coming-of-age mystery. What I got instead was... something else entirely. Something dreamlike, uncomfortable, and weirdly beautiful — and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since!

First and for most, I literally HAD to remind myself that this book is told from the perspective of a group of boys who were obsessed with the Lisbon sisters — five teenage girls who all died by suicide. That detail isn’t a spoiler; it’s in the title, and it’s clear from page one. But here’s the thing: because we only see the story through old artifacts, second-hand accounts, and the boy’s own biased memories, nothing ever feels totally reliable. Their narration is filled with this sense of nostalgia, fantasy, and that very specific kind of teenage male gaze that turns real people into untouchable ideals. Everything is romanticized, exaggerated, and probably a little (or a lot lol) untrue. That choice of narration is everything. The boys don’t see the Lisbon girls as individuals, not human. They see them as ethereal, otherworldly, impossible-to-understand beings. It’s as if their deaths turned them into myths, and the boys have spent their whole lives mythologizing them.

The writing reflects that, too. It’s flowery, poetic, and kind of intoxicating. The whole book feels like a half-remembered dream - sensual, disjointed, non-linear. At times, it's beautiful. At others, it's deeply uncomfortable. The way the boys talk about the girls - especially knowing they're dead - starts to feel more like obsession than grief. The structure flows more like memory than a story, jumping around in time and tone. The prose is lush, dreamlike, and full of sensory detail. At times it reads like a poem or a diary entry, almost hypnotic in its rhythm.

But that beauty comes with a darker undercurrent. The boys’ obsession with the girls often veers into something voyeuristic, even dehumanizing. They don’t love the girls so much as the idea of them. They remember their hair, their perfume, the way they smiled — but rarely their voices, their feelings, or their inner lives. And that’s what makes the whole thing so unsettling.

Lux Lisbon, in particular, stands out to me. She’s the most sexualized, the most fixated-on. It made me wonder, was she really like that, or is this just how the boys want to remember her? Was she acting out, or was she just trying to find some control? It made me think a lot about how female sexuality is perceived, especially when it's coming from a teenage girl. It’s clear the boys were completely fascinated by her. She’s portrayed as this ‘wild’ one - sexual, rebellious, unreachable. But then again, was she really like that? Or is that just how the boys chose to remember her?

Her relationship with Trip Fontaine is painted as this electric, unforgettable teenage love story. But there’s something deeply sad about it too - Lux being left alone on the football field, Lux sneaking boys onto the roof just to feel something. Is her sexuality empowering? Desperate? Confused? I don’t know. And neither do the boys.

By the end of the book, I found myself frustrated. Not because it was bad, far from it, but because it gave me no answers. I wanted to understand why the girls did what they did. What pushed them there. But the book never really tells you. There’s no neat reason, no big twist, no satisfying moral lesson. And that’s the most painful and honest thing about it. Were the girls crushed by the pressure of being beautiful? By their parents’ strict control? By isolation, mental illness, or just the general tragedy of being young and misunderstood? Maybe all of it. Maybe none of it. We don’t, and probably never will, know. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re not supposed to know. Maybe the boys never did, and never will.

Film review

After finishing reading the book, me and my reading buddy decided to watch the film - we know and don’t know what to expect and honestly, we were so excited to dwell in it! 

What stuck out with us immediately was the soundtrack, it is GENUINELY crazy good - dreamy, nostalgic.. I heard their songs over and over on TikTok and actually seeing them on screen was such a surreal feeling. Yet the film was so quiet, mostly room tones, atmosphere, etc and I found that the Lisbon’s girls rarely ever talked and I find that such an interesting concept. 

I also found their choice to almost verbatim their whole lines to the book was amazing though I was a bit sad that some parts feel a bit caught off and a bit rushed ie Mary being the actual one last to go, which was understandable honestly. 

There were lots of sudden cuts as well, like one moment we’ll feel this dreamy high and the next a whiplash of reality like wow! Yes! Straight to the point! Suddenly we’re in this muted mood. And I could see some influences from Ford Coppola’s style in here, how it was shot, how it was edited but goodness did Sofia do an amazing work on making it her style.  

And like actually seeing the down spiral of the parent’s mental health, how the girls look like, their rooms, their clothing, etc, like props to the custom and production design! I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the film honestly, it left me feeling so empty, in a good way. 

And honestly? There’s nothing much else to say for the film that I didn’t say in the book section. So if you guys haven’t watched or read it, I recommend that you guys do too! If yall did watched it, what were your thoughts on it? Did you like the book better? Or the movie? What exactly did you like or dislike about it? I’d love to know!